China’s self-developed drug to treat the Alzheimer’s disease is officially for sale in the country and will begin global clinical trials soon, according to its manufacturer.

At the drug’s global launch ceremony Sunday in Beijing, Shanghai Green Valley Pharmaceuticals announced that its sodium oligomannate product GV-971 is now available in China with a prescription. The drug “treats mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease and improves patients’ cognitive functions,” according to its package insert. A prescription of 42 capsules costs 895 yuan ($128).

According to the drug’s researchers, nearly 1,200 people participated in its clinical trials in China, during which it proved to be 78% effective. Green Valley also announced at Sunday’s launch ceremony that it will invest $3 billion in further research and plans to recruit over 2,000 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s from 200 medical centers in “North America, the European Union, Eastern Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.”

The pharmaceutical company said Sunday that it hopes to secure global approval for its Alzheimer’s drug by 2025.

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia worldwide, impacting an individual’s memory and cognitive abilities and affecting over 9 million people in China. In early November, sodium oligomannate was granted conditional approval by China’s National Medical Products Administration. However, numerous scientists have raised doubts about whether the new drug is as effective as claimed, pointing to allegedly insufficient human clinical trials. (Image: Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica)